Date: 4/17/01 10:54 AM
Received: 4/17/01 11:05 AM
From: Glenn Caleval, gcaleval@producer.com
To: Timothy W. Shire, ftl@sk.sympatico.ca
Dave Balderstone forwarded your request for a link to me for approval:
>I would like to see a link to
>North Central Internet News (Ensign)
>in your Internet Directory listed under "news and electronic publications"
Having reviewed the site this morning, I do not find it appropriate for a free listing
under our news category. We are considering adding a category, "Political Links
for Agriculture" and if we proceed, may reconsider your request for that category
in view of its majority opinion content.
We do provide priced listings at $30.00 and offer many advertising opportunities,
including banner advertising on our website. If you are interested in pursuing
either, let me know and I'll have the appropriate sales rep contact.
Thank you for your interest.
Glenn Caleval
Marketing Director
Western Producer Publications
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Since the establishment of Ensign in May of 1998 we have always
carried a link to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool's publication, The
Western Producer, web site. It was thought that it carried valued agricultural
information for readers of Ensign and that it would be a quick and
useful means to get to that information.
Looking through their site the other day it was noticed that they have a very thorough
listing of various Saskatchewan publications both those who are paper based and
some that are web based and it was noticed that Ensign and our sister
publication Saskatchewan News were
not listed. This lead us to contact the Producer and ask them to consider a link
to our site and above is their response.
With the propensity of weather, natural scenes and skies in Ensign
one wonders how the few political articles make Ensign a political publication.
One of the things that we try very hard to do is strike a balance between those concerns
that affect our lives and the nature around us. Some times we hit that balance and
there are times when you get a lot of pictures of the sky.
In Edwin Wallace's last
article on the appointment of Marvin Wiens to another term as head of the Pool,
Edwin takes a paragraph to explain the economic censorship that prevades the weekly
and daily news papers of this province. They depend on advertising revenue and it
is unlikely that they would allow anything that might offend their advertisers to
appear on their pages. Ensign by not being involved in advertising,
has been able to speak freely and openly about anything and when we do so, you as
a reader, know full well that we do so without being faced with bribery and influence.
When you see the story about John
Bob Equipment today or Schpansky
yesterday you know that those stories are real and neither business paid for
those stories in any way. Schpansky is not an FTLComm customer and
though we made the John Bob site
that was three years ago.
It should come as no surprise that the Wheat Pool's own publication
would not carry even a link to a subversive truth telling publication and you had
better think that through when you look at the pages of their web site or their paper
publication. When they will not even carry a link to us, consider what level of
filtering takes place on the material they publish and falaciously refer to as "news."
Sincerely
Timothy W. Shire
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